Nationwide, home births rose
20 percent from 2004 to 2008. Vermont ranks second in the nation in percentage of home births.
And legislation passed in the state this spring will require insurance
companies to cover midwifery care, including home births. We take a look at the
choices parents are making about where to give birth and what kinds of
professionals they want in attendance-from doctors to midwives to doulas. And
we look at whether expectations are shifting around what the birth experience
should be like. Our guests are Kathryn Saunders, a certified nurse midwife at Gifford Medical Center’s birthing center in Randolph, Marjorie Meyer, the
medical director for the birthing center at Fletcher Allen, and Erin Ryan, a
licensed midwife practicing in central Vermont who does home births.
Also on the program: this
week VPR is exploring how the University of Vermont has changed over the last
10 years, and what changes are still ahead as UVM prepares to hire a new president.
In recent years, there has been tension between UVM’s administration and the
faculty. Now, the incoming president of the Faculty Senate, Julie Roberts, shares
her perspective on where UVM has been and where it’s going.
And this month at the Chandler Center for the Arts in Randolph, local actors have been doing staged readings of
scripts and screenplays with gay and lesbian themes. The readings are part of
the Summer Pride festival, which concludes this weekend. We talk to director David
Zak about the festival, and the range of work being done by LGBT stage and
screen writers.